Author: Miriah

Looking back at 2024 and ahead to 2025

On By MiriahIn Life, Writing PathLeave a comment

Standard blog content for this time of year would be a review of my past year and committing to goals for the upcoming year.

My 2024 in review:

  • I was extremely sick with pneumonia and complications for all of January and February.
  • My father passed away in July at the age of 97 from covid. The best friend of one of my daughters died suddenly of cancer – he was only 23 and his partner was pregnant (their baby is healthy). Also, both of my elderly cats passed away.
  • I continued volunteering on the Board of Directors of Cascade Writers Workshop.
  • I resumed submitting a couple of short stories to markets. (I had sort of stopped bothering when covid hit and put my energy into mainly writing for fun.) Black Cat Weekly accepted my novelette, The Ballad of Kinmont Willa, for publication (but I don’t know when it will be published).
  • The in-person Numenera table-top campaign I GM’d, based on Monty Cook’s Slaves of the Machine Gods wrapped at the narrative end after about 14 months.
  • I continued to participate as a player and GM in multiple play-by-post roleplaying games. On one forum where most of my games are hosted, I volunteered on a ‘Collaboration, Accessibility, Community, and Equity’ committee. A game I GM’d in the Killjoys tv series setting came to a narrative end, and I started GMing a new game with three groups of players in a setting based on fairy tales and Monty Cook’s We Are All Mad Here by Shanna Germain.
  • In September, my husband and I went on a week-long guided tour of the US southwest National Parks that included Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, and the Grand Canyon. It was absolutely lovely and amazing! But we both came home with covid, curtesy of another couple on the tour.
A large black and white dog named Teddy.
Teddy, looking back.

Looking ahead to 2025

  • My goals include more exercise, declutter, keep a log of the books I read.
  • I plan to engage with world events in a meaningful way, although I don’t quite know how I’ll do that – yet.
  • My big goal for 2025 is to write a novel. Often when I get a novel-sized story idea the beginning and end are clear to me, but when I write an outline, I realize I don’t know what happens in the middle. For this novel idea, I’ve been working on what feels like a good working outline that includes what happens in each act, and I’m excited about writing it, the characters, and the theme. I can write a novel in one year, right?

What are your goals for 2025?

I am complicit

On By MiriahIn LifeLeave a comment

It is rightly said that white women are the cradle of white supremacy and misogyny. Even when we are not actively teaching our children to hate, we perpetuate hate through our silence and inaction. To “keep the peace” we pretend we don’t know. We excuse the inexcusable. We ignore what’s right in front of us. We are okay with our family members’ cruelty as long as we personally are not the victim.

Because when we acknowledge, when we bear witness, we can’t escape the reality that we are complicit.

An angry cat carved into a pumpkin and illuminated.
Last month’s Halloween pumpkin

A week ago today in a zoom call with my two siblings, I asked my brother who he voted for. I needed to know (see my last post), and I hoped he would say Harris, but if not, I figured he would say something like “I don’t want to talk about politics.” Then my sister and I would awkwardly pretend we didn’t know he voted for Trump.

My brother proudly declared he “voted with his wallet for Trump” and when I conveyed how horrifying it was to me that he that he would vote to take away my human rights and the human rights of my children, my own brother – who has on numerous previous occasions claimed to love me – he laughed. He took delight in my despair.

He gloated.

Then he proceeded to spew misogynist and racist Faux News crap.

After I told him to fuck off and I left the call (yeah, when I’m really angry I lose all ability to articulate), my sister told me later that before she ended the call, he doubled down on the misogyny and racism and complained that he and our mother (who passed away in 2021) had an ‘understanding’ to never discuss politics.

Thing is, Mom followed politics closely, and she was passionately progressive about social issues. For example, she and I went to a rally together to protest the first Trump regime’s obscene treatment of immigrants.

So what does that say about the relationship between my brother and our mother? I think Mom never discussed politics with her son because she wanted to believe he was a good person. A moral person. A kind and compassionate person. That’s what I wanted to believe about him too, even with ample evidence to the contrary. But now I have no such illusions, and I’m done pretending.

Hope Lost, for now

On By MiriahIn Life, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last week we learned what many of us feared – half of people in the US worship a grotesquely disgusting creep. They voted him into the office of US president. Hate won.

Like many who envisioned a bright future ahead, with leaders who lifted people up instead of punching them down, that hope has been crushed. Electing Harris would have been the first step on the road to a positive future.

Most Trump supporters are very proud of their bigotry and wear self-identifying t-shirts and hats. I live in a mostly blue area of Washington. For me personally, the worst part is certain internet communities I’m a member of. Knowing there’s a 50/50 chance that any person I interact with there is a Trump supporter saddens me deeply.

Why? If you voted for Trump, this is what that says to me (and the blue half of the US) about who you are:

  • You are a white supremacist. You could never vote for an extremely well qualified black woman over an extremely unqualified white male reality show host.
  • You enjoy the idea of anyone who isn’t white enough getting deported, regardless of their immigration status.
  • You are a fascist (but too stupid to recognize what fascism is).
  • You are a misogynist, and your hate includes all women, even your own daughters. You don’t care if they die from treatable medical emergencies. If you are a woman, you especially hate yourself. To you, women are not human beings, they are property.
  • You approve of rapists. Like Trump, you believe men are entitled to use women’s bodies however they wish and have probably acted accordingly.
  • You are ableist.
  • You are homophobic.
  • You are transphobic and obsessed with other people’s genitals, especially school children’s.
  • You are too stupid to understand that unless you are very wealthy, you will not be the exception.
  • You have no empathy at all.
Photo of the Seattle Japanese Gardens, Washington Park Arboretum, in November 2024
Seattle Japanese Gardens, Washington Park Arboretum

This is where a lot of bloggers outline their plan for coping and taking action. I still have hope for the future, but I don’t have a plan.

Yet.

House-sitting Writing Retreat

On By MiriahIn Writing PathLeave a comment

Last week while my oldest daughter and her family were on vacation, I got to cat-sit at their place and enjoy a writing retreat. Just me, my grand-kitty, and quiet thinking and writing time.

Miriah Hetherington holding a black and white cat
Miriah and Malcolm (the cat)

Creatives have to make the most of whatever creating space and time they can set aside for themselves. It’s not always easy to do. I decided in advance that I would plan some breaks, including coffee with a friend, and leave the TV (and awesome gaming console) off.

Those solid blocks of uninterrupted time were so useful.

I’ve been working up an idea for a fantasy story that I think will be novel length. The plot outline, the characters, world building, magic system, etc. I’m super excited about this project.

Malcolm the cat laying in his patch of catnip
Malcolm visits his catnip patch

It’s not the only writing project on my plate. I have a novelette to revise and cut down to less that 10k words. I attended a lecture about writing interactive fiction at the Dream Foundry online convention and now have a better idea of how to make my interactive fiction time-travel story work. On top of that I’m still busy with play-by-post roleplaying games.

Have you done a writing retreat? Was it useful for you?

I vote because I have hope for the future

On By MiriahIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

And I hope you will too.

I’m fortunate to live in Washington State for many reasons. As the national elections loom ever closer, one of those reasons is that this is a state with mail-in voting.

A writer friend told me about Vote Forward.

Vote Forward is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that organizes volunteers to send non-partisan hand-written notes to potential voters to encourage them to vote.

I just finished writing/preparing a bundle of twenty letters and signed up for another twenty.

Vote, friends. Our future depends on all of us.

Letter bundle for Vote Forward

Are Blogs Obsolete?

On By MiriahIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Does anyone actually read blogs anymore?


Back in April 2012 when I started this blog, I was authoritatively (pun intended) assured that if I wanted to be a published author, I MUST have a blog. All I had to do was choose a theme, produce useful and valuable content, and build a following.


Right.


My last blog post was almost five years ago. Things have changed so much in that time. In regard to an online presence, nowadays with TikTok and YouTube and Instagram, and a myriad of other content creator venues, this sort of personal blog is probably outdated. I’ve given some thought to just deleting this blog, but instead I’m going to reboot it.


I’m not sure what the content will be yet. Could be book reviews, thoughts about world events, or hobbies. We’ll see.


But mostly I’ll be writing a blog for the same reason I write fiction – for my own amusement.

A coyote visitor to my neighborhood.

Winter Holiday Crafts 2019

On By MiriahIn LifeLeave a comment

Happy Holidays to all!

When my children were little, I made each of them a stocking from one of those kits, the ones where you hand-sew, sequin, and stuff the felt pieces together. When I realized that my son-in-law didn’t have a Christmas stocking, I wanted to make one for him too. He chose a kit he liked (there are so many to choose from!) and I put it together.

photo of Christmas stocking in first three stages of completion
Progress photos. A) cabin and trees, B) deer and bear, C) Santa.

It was a fun project. One thing the directions don’t tell you, and I learned from making the previous stockings, is that it’s essential sew a lining and reinforce the hanging loop if you ever intend to actually put gifts and candy inside the stocking and hang it.

photo of completed Christmas stocking
Completed stocking, with fox, fire, marshmallows, and personalization.

What holiday crafts have you made this year?

Tabaxi Inspiration

On By MiriahIn Uncategorized, Writing PathLeave a comment

A while back my table-top group decided to play an out-of-the-box Dungeons & Dragons campaign. It had been a very long time since I last checked out D&D (we used the GURPS system for five years), and I was intrigued by the Fifth Edition (5e) new playable races. The tabaxi, a cat-like humanoid race in particular.

So, as you do when you’re a writer and you love roleplaying games like I do, I wrote a D&D fanfiction story about my character’s backstory. You can read it here: Dream of Starlight on Still Water

I also did something I’d never done before. I bought and painted miniatures!

photo of tabaxi DnD miniatures with quarter to show size
‘Miniature’ is an understatement

photo of tabaxi DnD miniature with hood before and after painting
before and after painting

photo of tabaxi DnD miniature with daggers extended before and after painting
before and after painting

A new year – 2019

On By MiriahIn Life, Writing PathLeave a comment

I tend to think that a list of New-Year’s resolutions will end up being a depressing list of things I didn’t do in twelve month’s time. So I’m keeping my goals for this year general: Finish editing my novel (The Heartstone of Tehnareach). Continue improving my health. Read more. Write some short stories. Finish more things. Support my loved ones. I’ve started the year with a spreadsheet to keep track so that at the end of each month I can review and update my goals without feeling like I have no idea what the heck I actually did.

Miriah Hetherington
My helpers, Teddy and Thea

Find what works and do that – a strategy for life goals as well as writing

On By MiriahIn LifeLeave a comment

Over the last six months I’ve lost 35 pounds.

Because of a variety of factors, over the last ten years my weight had slowly crept up to… a lot more than it ever was before. I decided I was ready to make a change. It’s been a hard journey and I still have another 15 pounds to loose to get to the goal weight set by my doctor.

I’m fortunate to have a number of factors working to my advantage. I have minimal emotional triggers related to my weight. Like most women (and many men) I’m impacted by the unrealistic expectations of society and the (false) assumption that healthy automatically equals thin (despite long-standing research and medical finding to the contrary). But I have not struggled my whole life with unsuccessful diets and toxic weight-loss expectations, as many people do.

My privilege includes:
– access to good healthcare,
– access to fresh quality food and the means to buy it,
– living in a neighbor where I can safely walk for exercise,
– possessing the means to pay for and go to a gym.

With all those advantages, my basic weight-loss strategy has been to exercise more, sleep more, eat less, and eat better. I record every single thing I eat, every day. There are a lot of good Apps around for keeping track of diet. I use one called My Fitness Pal. It’s free, although I paid $50 for a year without adverts. The food database is extensive and I rarely need to use the add-new feature, and the recipe add is easy. It’s basically a calorie-counter that (depending on settings) awards additional calories for activity – which motivates me to exercise. I sync the app to my fitbit and let it figure out how many calories I’ve burned.

I anticipate reaching my goal weight in another 3 to 4 months, then a few months more to figure out maintenance.

This is what has worked for me. I think the key to any sustainable life change, like a writing practice, is to experiment. Find what works for your unique self and do that.

Oh, and here’s the obligatory photo:

Miriah Hetherington hand
Still tight, but for the first time in years I can wear my (real) wedding ring.